FCC Chairman Brendan Carr announced his “Pledge America Campaign” in mid-February, urging broadcasters to air “patriotic, pro-America programming” in celebration of America’s 250th birthday this July 4. Among his suggestions: starting each broadcast day with “The Star-Spangled Banner” or the Pledge of Allegiance.
I have a better idea.
Before the anthem plays, before a single note of John Philip Sousa is aired, broadcasters should put 45 words on the screen – the words of the First Amendment. It would be the most patriotic thing they could do for America’s Semiquincentennial, and perhaps the most necessary.
This isn’t a new notion for me. I’ve previously proposed that Major League Baseball add a recital of the First Amendment before “The Star-Spangled Banner” at every game. Flash those 45 words on the stadium Jumbotron, let the crowd read them together, and then sing the anthem with a deeper understanding of what “the land of the free” actually means.
I have also argued that movie theaters should display the First Amendment on screen before the lights dim and the coming attractions roll – a brief, powerful civics lesson for Americans of all ages assembled in their local cinemas.
The logic is straightforward. These are places where Americans gather as Americans, not as partisans. A ballpark on opening day, a packed movie theater on a Friday night, a living room tuned to the local morning news – these are spaces where the First Amendment can transcend the political divisions that Carr himself says he wants to bridge.
And he is right that civics education is in rapid decline. Survey after survey confirms that alarming numbers of Americans, especially younger ones, cannot identify the freedoms the First Amendment protects.
When less than half of high school students in a Knight Foundation survey supported freedom of speech when it involves expression that is “offensive,” the problem is not a shortage of patriotic programming. The problem is that too many Americans have never meaningfully engaged with the bedrock constitutional principle that makes all other freedoms possible.
Carr invoked “Schoolhouse Rock!” as a model, and something is charming about that. But nostalgia for Saturday morning cartoons won’t address the deeper challenge. What would be more meaningful is making the First Amendment itself more visible and present in American daily life – on broadcast airwaves, yes, but also in stadiums, cinemas, and every other place where we come together as a national community.
Here is where the opportunity gets more complicated. Celebrating America’s free expression tradition requires more than putting patriotic programming on the air – it also means ensuring that the robust, sometimes uncomfortable speech the Founders prized remains equally welcome on those same airwaves. A campaign to honor the nation’s founding principles is most credible when it embraces all of what the First Amendment protects, not just the parts that feel comfortable.
The First Amendment is not a partisan document. It serves all Americans – left, right, and center.
“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” Those 45 words don’t belong to any administration, any party, or any campaign. They belong to all of us.
So yes, Chairman Carr, let’s celebrate America’s 250th. Let’s ask broadcasters to serve the public interest by educating their audiences about what makes this country extraordinary. But let’s start with the single greatest contribution America has made to human liberty.
Put the First Amendment on the air. Put it on the Jumbotron. Put it on the silver screen. And then let it do what it has always done – remind every American that free expression is not a threat to our democracy. It is our democracy.
Stuart N. Brotman is Digital Media Laureate and Distinguished Senior Fellow at The Media Institute, and is a member of the Institute’s First Amendment Advisory Council. A former Visiting Professor of Entertainment and Media Law at Harvard Law School, he is the author of Free Expression Under Fire: Defending Free Speech and Free Press Across the Political Spectrum. This article appeared in The Hill.